Monday, September 16, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
OBVIOUSLY ONE NEED NOT BE A "SOCIALIST" (WHATEVER THAT IS, I KNOW AT LEAST EIGHT DIFFERENT IMPORTANT VARIETIES) TO USE THE BIBLICAL QUOTES BELOW.
Socialism is Practical Christianity
(Written for the People's National Party—P. N. P.-of Jamaica, 1965)
By Bertell Ollman
(Written for the People's National Party—P. N. P.-of Jamaica, 1965)
By Bertell Ollman
Is this true? Listen to the words of Jesus and decide for yourselves whether Socialism is Practical Christianity.
SOCIALISM MEANS BROTHERHOOD:
"all ye are brethren." (Matthew"23;8)
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."(Matthew: 22; 39)
"All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matthew: 7; 12)
"Let everyone who possesses two shirts share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise." (Luke: 3; 11)
"Give to every man that asketh of thee." (Luke: 6; 30)
SOCIALISM MEANS JUSTICE:
"Give and it shall be given unto you...for with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." (Luke: 6; 38)SOCIALISM MEANS BEING FOR POOR PEOPLE AND AGAINST THEIR OPPRESSORS:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor...to preach deliverance to the captives." (Luke: 4; 18)SOCIALISM MEANS OPPOSITION TO THE GREEDY RICH:
"Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation."(Luke: 6; 24).SOCIALISM MEANS CHRISTIAN CONCERN FOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS:
"No man can serve two masters…Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Matthew: 6; 24)
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."(Matthew: 19; 23)
Jesus' life, as well as his teachings, was a model of concern for his fellow human beings. Though poor in material things, he and his disciples shared what they had with all about them. For centuries afterwards, those who called themselves Christians were most noteworthy for the cooperative fellowship that characterized the community in which Jesus lived. For these men, Christianity was a matter of making over their lives to bring the greatest good to mankind. So, too, for many of the early Christian missionaries who came to Jamaica. It was Churchmen like Knibb, Burchell and Sharpe who fought the planters and got slavery abolished. Land settlement to provide land for the freed slaves and public education for the children of the poor also came about through the efforts of these true Christians. George Williams Gordon and Bogle of St. Thomas were Churchmen who were willing to suffer martyrdom to improve the conditions of the people.
SOCIALISM MEANS THE SOLUTION:Then, as now, it was not possible to love God without loving one's fellow man, and putting this love into practice. In the modern period, unemployment and its accompanying ills have replaced slavery as the principal evil. Today in Jamaica no true Christian can remain indifferent while hundreds of thousands of his countrymen are ill-fed, badly housed, illiterate, and without proper medical care. Pained by the sight of so much suffering, many high minded Christians have turned to socialism as the solution.
SOCIALISM MEANS AN END TO CAPITALIST INJUSTICE:Capitalism, the system under which we are now living, may be described as a way of life in which, "One soweth, and another reapeth"(John: 4; 37). Well might we say to the wealthy few who own our large estates and factories what Jesus said to his disciples: "you…reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor"(John: 4; 38). The capitalists cease from resting only to eat, while you cease from working only to rest, and eat only when you can. Do you believe that Jesus favored such injustice, he who said, "by their fruits ye shall know them"(Mathew: 7; 20)? The fruits of capitalism in Jamaica can be seen even by the blind; they are poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, crime, greed, and disease. Could the kind and loving Jesus have wanted us to live like this?
SOCIALISM MEANS LIVING THE GOLDEN RULE:Socialism is the exact opposite of capitalism. In socialism, every man carries an equal burden of work and shares equally in the good things that society has to offer. There is no poverty, because all the idle land and machines have been put to use to produce the things people want. Production is aimed at satisfying the needs of the masses rather than the profit interest of a few. There is no unemployment, because a plan has been created to put everyone to work. Illiteracy is soon abolished, and the diseases that plague people are reduced to the few for which advanced medicine has not found a cure. Each individual is given the chance of developing himself to the fullest, with everyone helping him in whatever way they can. The Golden Rule—"as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise"(Luke: 6; 31)—has become the rule which all men follow in their daily lives.
SOCIALISM MEANS THE PEOPLE OWN THEIR COUNTRY:The journey to socialism is long and hard; but Jesus never said Christianity was easy. The road to socialism passes by way of public ownership of large estates and factories, that is the replacement of private capitalists by the workers, the consumers, the local community, or the national Government. In this way people will own their places of work, either directly or through some body duly elected to represent them. If a man works on his own as a farmer or craftsman, he will continue to do so or become a member of a local cooperative. The choice is his, and, no matter what he chooses, socialism will bring him outstanding benefits in the way of a fair price for his products, security during ill health and old age, greatly improved educational, medical, recreational, and cultural facilities, and much else. Those who work for large firms and estates, on the other hand, will become the common owners of their enterprises. Throughout, cooperation, the brotherhood called for in Christ's teachings, is at the center of socialism, and it will be encouraged in all walks of life and by every possible means.
SOCIALISM DOES NOT MEAN WHAT ITS ENEMIES SAYS IT DOES:There are a few rich people in Jamaica who hate socialism, because it would take away their special privileges and make them our equals. These selfish men, who own the press and the radio, try to scare people by telling them lies about socialism. These are the "false prophets" of our day. Jesus, too, had put up with many lies told by those who disliked his teachings. Here are some of the worst lies you are likely to hear about socialism. Don't you be fooled.
It is a LIE that socialism is against Christianity. How can it be when socialism is Christianity put into practice? It is a LIE that people cannot worship freely in socialism. It is a LIE that socialism means cutting your goat or house in two and giving half to the government. It is a LIE that socialism means that the small farmer will have his land taken away from him. It is a LIE that socialism will make us all prisoners of the Russians or the Chinese or the Cubans. What nonsense, yet our capitalists are counting on you to believe it.
SOCIALISM IS COMING—WITH YOUR HELP:If, indeed, SOCIALISM IS PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY, it is the duty of every Christian to help bring it about as quickly as possible. Keep in mind—all that is needed to win a victory for EQUALITY and BROTHERHOOD is for enough of you, the people of Jamaica, to want it and to will it. In politics, as in religious matters, we have much to learn from Jesus' words:
"Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you"(Mathew: 7; 7).Your children are depending on you. Don't fail them.
SOCIALISM IS PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY
SOCIALISM MEANS BROTHERHOOD
SOCIALISM MEANS EQUALITY
SOCIALISM MEANS JUSTICE
SOCIALISM MEANS BEING FOR POOR PEOPLE AND AGAINST THEIR OPPRESSORS
SOCIALISM MEANS OPPOSITION TO THE GREEDY RICH
SOCIALISM MEANS CHRISTIAN CONCERN FOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS
SOCIALISM MEANS THE SOLUTION
SOCIALISM MEANS AN END TO CAPITALIST INJUSTICE
SOCIALISM MEANS LIVING THE GOLDEN RULE
SOCIALISM MEANS THE PEOPLE OWN THEIR COUNTRY
SOCIALISM DOES NOT MEAN WHAT ITS ENEMIES SAY IT DOES
SOCIALISM IS COMING—WITH YOUR HELP
SOCIALISM IS PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY
FROM THE WASHINGTON POST
A truly strange thing has happened to American Christianity. A set of profound contradictions have developed within modern conservative Christianity, big and telling inconsistencies that have long slipped under the radar of public knowledge, and are only now beginning to be explicitly noted by critics of the religious and economic right.
Here is what is peculiar. Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of - and many of whose followers are -- the most hard-line anti-Christian atheist/s you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism!
Meanwhile atheists, secularists and evolutionist are denounced as inventing the egalitarian evils of anti-socially Darwinistic socialism and communism. It’s such a weird stew of incongruities that it sets one’s head spinning. Social researchers like myself ask, how did these internal conflict come about? And why are not liberals and progressives doing the logical thing and taking full advantage of the inconsistencies of right wing libertarianism by loudly exposing the contradictions?
To understand why the pro-capitalist stance of many modern religious conservatives is at odds with Christian doctrine we need to start with the Gospels.
Jesus is no free marketeer. Improving one’s earthly financial circumstances is not nearly as critical as preparing for the end times that will arrive at any minute. He does offer substantial encouragement for the poor, and warns the wealthy that they are in grave danger of blowing their prospects of reaching paradise, as per the metaphor of a rich person entering heaven being as difficult as a camel passing through the eye of the needle (a narrow passageway designed to hinder intruders). This caution makes sense: sociological research is confirming that the more securely prosperous individuals and societies are, the more likely they are to lose the faith. A basic point of core Christian doctrine is that the wealthy have no more access to heaven than anyone else (and in fact may have less), offering hope to the impoverished rejected by cults that court the elites. This remains true in Catholicism, in which being poor does not constitute evidence of a personal deficiency, and church authorities decry the excesses of unrestrained capital at the expense of social justice.
But to understand just how non-capitalistic Christianity is supposed to be we turn to the first chapter after the gospels, Acts, which describes the events of the early church. Chapters 2 and 4 state that all “the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need… No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…. There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”
Now folks, that’s outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx - who likely got the general idea from the gospels.
The pro-capitalist Christians who are aware of these passages wave them away even though it is the only explicit description of Christian economics in the Bible.
To get just how central collectivism is to Christian canon, consider that the Bible contains the first description of socialism in history. Anti-socialist Christians also claim that the Biblical version was voluntary. Aside from it being obvious that the biblical version of God was not the anti-socialist Christian capitalists commonly proclaim he was, some dark passages in Acts indicate how deeply pro-socialist the New Testament deity is. Chapter 5 details how when a church member fails to turn over all his property to the church “he fell down and died,” when his wife later did the same “she fell down… and died… Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”
Dear readers, does this not sound like a form of terror-enforced-communism imposed by a God who thinks that Christians who fail to join the collective are worthy of death? Not only is socialism a Christian invention, so is its extreme communistic variant. The claim by many Christians that Christ hates socialism is untrue, while no explicit description of capitalism is found in the Bible - not surprising because it had not yet evolved.
So how did so much of Christianity come to reject socialism? That is not hard to figure out. In the early Protestant Netherlands, Switzerland and England capital became the dominant economic driver. Of course members of a religion want to think that God approves of what they are up to. So many (but not all) Protestants began to cherry pick those Biblical passages that could be massaged to seemingly support laissez-faire markets while pretty much ignoring those that clearly don’t. This works because, as surveys show, most Christians don’t actually read the bulk of the Bible, and people are mentally skilled at dismissing the awkward passages they do come across. Christians really took the theory that God is pro-capital to its extreme in what has be come the least socialistic and most Jesus-following of the advanced democracies, the USA, where many see the nation as an exceptional, God blessed “Shining City on the Hill” they think stands as the exemplar of Godly capitalism to the world.
In Puritan doctrine only the few destined for heaven can enjoy earthly wealth - that’s why there aren’t many rich folks - and poverty is the widespread sign of being destined for hell. But Puritanism was too dour for most Americans, so the notion that God wants his many followers to become as well-heeled as possible really took off with the emergence of the celebratory, self help oriented evangelical and Pentecostal Prosperity Christianity that the likes of Amy McPherson began to promote at the same time the modern corporate-consumer culture arose after the first world war.
The intellectual foundations for the alliance between capital and God were laid after the second world war by Catholic William Buckley, who, like some others contrived to maneuver around their churches’ skepticism about mercantile interests, worked to convert frugal church goers into materialistic consumers who spend their Sundays watching spectator sports and charging up interest loaded debt at the mall.
Back in the 1800s the non-theist Herbert Spencer adapted the evolutionary science developed by Darwin into what has become known as social Darwinism -- even though the biologist had little interest in socioeconomic issues, as well as a live and let live attitude about religion. It was Spencer who coined the term “survival of the fittest” that Darwin worked into later editions of his biology texts. Many Christians - logically concerned at the threat that a naturalistic explanation of human origins posed for popular belief in a supernatural creator - reacted by blaming harsh Darwinian biology for creating the similarly harsh “Darwinian” socioeconomics that they saw as responsible for the ills of the modern world.
At the same time socialists and communists were adapting those aspects of evolutionary science that they liked (a god-free origin of our world) while rejecting those they did not (the anti-egalitarianism integral to survival of the fittest free markets caused Marx and Engels to denounce evolution as a “bitter satire” on man and nature, and Stalin would ban pre-deterministic genetics for contradicting the blank slate theory of communism). While the communists drove the reasonable concept of social equality into the ground, Ayn Rand did the same with individual liberty. Because she hated the teeniest expression of the socialism, and because the concept was in the archaic Bible long before some non-theists decided it was the wave of the future, she promoted an anti-Christian, pro-evolution atheism so extreme that even most atheists including myself reject her claim to have philosophically absolutely disproved the existence of any god. But many influential conservative Christians have embraced her expressly atheistic theory of Objectivism that in her books such as The Virtue of Selfishness, they propose that government must be shrunk to a bare minimum so socially Darwinist that it dances with anarchy. Only then can entrepreneurial greed have the free run that liberty demands. Hence Rand’s more nobly titled Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are required reading for the staff of Paul Ryan.
Reagan’s economic advisor, Milton Friedman, was an anti-religious Objectivist Rand devotee. So is Alan Greenspan. Skeptics Penn and Teller and Michael Shermer are atheistic libertarians. In the Randian hyper-materialistic world those who are on the financial make are the exalted makers, the impoverished that accept tax payer assistance are parasitic takers who need to fend for themselves. A radical modernist ideology in greater antithesis to the traditional scriptural favoring of the poor over the rich can hardly be imagined. Yet the economics of the plutocratic Republican Party that embraces the Christian, anti-Darwinist creationist right are essentially those of the uberatheist, anti-creationist, Darwin-adoring Christianity-loathing Ayn Rand. So we have Christian creationists like Jay Richards writing books titled Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. Can a stranger amalgam of opposing opinions be devised?
What I do not get from a sociological perspective is why -- rather than letting the right avoid being called out for decade after decade -- progressives from pious to atheist (most being liberals) as well as the mainstream news media have not been exposing the fascinating incoherence of the right wing’s anti-Darwinian biology, pro-Darwinian economics? Logically Stewart, Maddow, Olbermann, Maher et al. should on a regular basis challenge Christian libertarians on how Palin, Bachmann, Coulter, Beck, Limbaugh, Gingrich et al. can reject as ungodly evil the hard line socialism that is explicitly enforced by their God in the Bible they profess to read and believe? And how can those libertarians who manage to be devout Christians fawn over Ayn Rand whose entire philosophy is a condemnation of Christian doctrine? Also that O’Reilly and Bennett explain how they can continue to be in opposition to their pope who issued the newest encyclical reaffirming the churches opposition to libertarian economics. And ask if a person opposes evolution because it leads to ungodly societal chaos then how can the same person endorse the economics that most closely replicate biological evolution? It does not make practical sense for progressives to fail to use the deep, hypocritical conflicts that mar the right to try to split the movement at its weakest links. The right cannot reply in kind because progressives are less internally conflicted; although liberals too range from devout to atheist they share a secular sense of social tolerance, concur that the gospels are economically progressive, and agree that organisms have evolved over deep time.
In educational terms mainstream press coverage of the issue would be a public service giving the public the information it needs to decide whether or not current conservatism is fatally disingenuous. In aWashington Post column liberal Catholic E. J. Dionne Jr. got things rolling by pointing out that the Rand whose books so many Christian conservatives treat as scripture was a flaming atheist.
It’s a start.
And why are progressives not regularly putting forward the fast growing body of technical research proving that it is the most secular, liberal democracies that are enjoying the overall best socioeconomic circumstances in history, including lower rates of homicide, incarceration, juvenile and adult mortality, STD infections, abortion, teen pregnancy, mental illness, illicit drug use, and so on compared to the more libertarian USA, and superior levels of economic security, upward mobility and education?
And finally, if you don’t like socialism and communism stop blaming atheists and other secularists for concocting egalitarian collectivism backed by fear of death. It got its start long ago in the Good Book.
Gregory Paul is an independent researcher in sociology and evolution. He wrote this article for washingtonpost.com/onfaith.
His previous posts for the Washington Post include:
More On Faith:
Jay Richards responds: Was Jesus a socialist?
FROM CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'
More proof that the U.S. military is the world’s worst and deadliest polluter,
from The Independent (UK) July 24, 2013.
from The Independent (UK) July 24, 2013.
Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.
Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.
Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened”.
US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.
In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. “During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city,” recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.
He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: “My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.”
—–
FROM CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
The looming threat of water scarcity
by Supriya Kumar
Vital Signs
Vital Signs
Some 1.2 billion people—almost one fifth of the world—live in areas of physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face what can be called economic water shortage. The situation is only expected to worsen as population growth, climate change, investment and management shortfalls, and inefficient use of existing resources restrict the amount of water available to people. It is estimated that by 2025 fully 1.8 billion people will live in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, with almost half of the world living in conditions of water stress.
Water scarcity has several definitions. Physical scarcity occurs when there is not enough water to meet demand; its symptoms include severe environmental degradation, declining groundwater, and unequal water distribution. Economic water scarcity occurs when there is a lack of investment and proper management to meet the demand of people who do not have the financial means to use existing water sources; the symptoms in this case normally include poor infrastructure. Large parts of Africa suffer from economic water scarcity.
To measure water scarcity, hydrologists compare the size of a population with the amount of available water. According to the United Nations, an area is said to be experiencing water stress when annual water supplies fall below 1,700 cubic meters per person. A region is said to face water scarcity when supplies fall below 1,000 cubic meters per person, and absolute water scarcity is when supplies drop below 500 cubic meters a year.
Regionally, nearly all Arab countries are considered water-scarce, with consumption of water significantly exceeding total renewable supplies. The region has less than 500 cubic meters of renewable water resources available per person annually. About 66 percent of Africa is arid or semiarid, and more than 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than 1,000 cubic meters of water resources each.
Although the Asia-Pacific region is home to almost 60 percent of the world’s population, it only has 36 percent of global water resources. In 2009, the region had 2,970 cubic meters of water resources per person. Although this is not a sign of water scarcity, it is still less than half of the world’s average of 6,236 annual cubic meters. Parts of northern China, India, and Pakistan suffer from both physical and economic scarcity. In comparison, the average amount of water available per person in Latin America is about 7,200 cubic meters, although it is only 2,466 cubic meters in the Caribbean.
North America and Europe, in contrast, are well endowed with renewable water resources. Canada and the United States have about 85,310 and 9,888 cubic meters of water resources per person, respectively, while Europe has almost 4,741 cubic meters. People in these regions also consume a considerable amount of “virtual water”—water that is used in the production of goods, especially agricultural products such as grain, which can then be traded. According to UN Water, each person in North America and Europe (excluding former Soviet Union countries) consumes at least 3 cubic meters per day of virtual water in imported food, compared with 1.4 cubic meters per day in Asia and 1.1 cubic meters per day in Africa.
Water resources face many pressures, including population growth, increased urbanization and overconsumption, lack of proper management, and the looming threat of climate change. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Water, global water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. World population is predicted to grow from 7 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050, putting a strain on water resources to meet increased food, energy, and industrial demands.
At the global level, 70 percent of water withdrawals are for the agricultural sector, 11 percent are to meet municipal demands, and 19 percent are for industrial needs. These numbers, however, are distorted by the few countries that have very high water withdrawals, such as China, India, and the United States.
Agriculture is one the most water-intensive sectors, currently accounting for more than 90 percent of consumptive use. Agricultural water withdrawal accounts for 44 percent of total water withdrawal among members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but this rises to more than 60 percent within the eight OECD countries that rely heavily on irrigated agriculture. In the four transitional economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, agriculture accounts for 74 percent of water withdrawals, but this ranges from 20 percent in the Russia to 87 percent in India.
Water use in agriculture is often inefficient, which has led to the overexploitation of groundwater resources as well as the depletion of the natural flow of major rivers, such as the Ganges in India and the Yellow River in China. Around 54 percent of the total area available for irrigation is irrigated with surface water, 5 percent with groundwater, and 41 percent with a combination of both sources. But when both sources are used together, less than 15 percent of it is surface water, which has led to a doubling of the global depletion of groundwater resources in the last 50 years. The Ganges, Indus, and Yellow River basins in Asia have already reached high levels of water crowding and suffer from sever water shortage due to overuse.
Policymakers must introduce a variety of measures to address global water scarcity. One important initiative is to support small-scale farmers. Much of the public investment in agricultural water management has focused on large-scale irrigation systems. But supporting smallholder farmers, who in general operate without large infrastructure such as dams, canals, and distribution devices, can decrease the amount of water used in the agricultural sector. This support must be accompanied by smart subsidies. In India, for example, many farmers who receive free electricity all day are experiencing groundwater depletion due to overpumping. To address this issue, policymakers in the state of Gujarat reduced the amount of time that farmers could pump water to eight hours on a pre-announced schedule that meets peak demand but also reduces total water usage.
Farmers can also use water more efficiently by taking a number of steps, including growing a diverse array of crops suited to local conditions, especially in drought-prone regions; practicing agroforestry to build strong root systems and reduce soil erosion; maintaining healthy soils, either by applying organic fertilizer or growing cover crops to retain soil moisture; and adopting irrigation systems like “drip” lines that deliver water directly to plants’ roots. Rice farmers, for example, can adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which not only increases crop yields but uses 20–50 percent less water than conventional rice production. SRI is an innovative method of increasing the productivity of irrigated rice with very simple adjustments to traditional techniques. It involves transplanting younger seedlings into a field with wider spacing in a square pattern, irrigating to keep the roots moist and aerated instead of flooding fields, and increasing organic matter in the soil with compost and manure.
While the growing world population is increasing the pressure on land and water resources, economic growth and individual wealth are shifting people from predominantly starch-based diets to meat and dairy, which require more water. Producing 1 kilogram of rice, for example, requires about 3,500 liters of water, while 1 kilogram of beef needs some 15,000 liters. This dietary shift has had the greatest impact on water consumption over the past 30 years and is likely to continue well into the middle of this century, according to FAO.
Water challenges are compounded by the fact that agriculture competes with other uses, including hydropower. All forms of energy require water at some stage of their life cycle, which includes production, conversion, distribution, and use. Energy and electricity consumption are likely to increase over the next 25 years in all regions, with the majority of this increase occurring in non-OECD countries. This will have direct implications for the water resources needed to supply this energy. It is anticipated that water requirements for energy production will increase by 11.2 percent by 2050 if the current mix of energy sources is maintained. Under a scenario that assumes increasing energy efficiency of consumption modes, the World Energy Council estimates that water requirements for energy production could decrease by 2.9 percent by 2050.
Luckily, there are also technical solutions to more-efficient water use in the energy sector. For example, brackish water, mine pool water, or domestic wastewater and dry cooling techniques have been used for cooling power plants. Research is also ongoing into the water efficiency of biofuels, the energy efficiency of desalination, and the reduction of evaporation from reservoirs.
Climate change will also affect global water resources at varying levels. Reductions in river runoff and aquifer recharge are expected in the Mediterranean basin and in the semiarid areas of the Americas, Australia, and southern Africa, affecting water availability in regions that are already water-stressed. In Asia—in particular, in countries such as Pakistan—the large areas of irrigated land that rely on snowmelt and high mountain glaciers for water will be affected by changes in runoff patterns, while highly populated deltas are at risk from a combination of reduced inflows, increased salinity, and rising sea levels. And rising temperatures will translate into increased crop water demand everywhere.
To combat the effects of climate change, efforts must be made to follow an integrated water resource management approach on a global scale. This involves water management that recognizes the holistic nature of the water cycle and the importance of managing trade-offs within it, that emphasizes the importance of effective institutions, and that is inherently adaptive.
(Tables, diagrams and reference notes for this report are online at Vital Signs)
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